


You're the Reason I Believe in Something I Don't Know

by squirenonny



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Autistic Keith (Voltron), Cuddling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heith Week 2017, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, chapters are separate drabbles but they kind of fit together into a semi-cohesive whole, i have gone too long without writing this the purest of ships, or at least you can take them all as part of the same universe, post season 2 for the most part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-02 12:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11509329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: This letting go is so beautifulCause you make it so easy to fall so hard[Seven ficlets written for Heith Week 2017]





	1. Bed Rest

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary come from the song "So Easy" by Phillip Phillips, because that strikes me as a very Heith song.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 1: **laughing** / ~~crying~~

There was a steady _thump, thump, thump_ audible through the wall of Keith’s room as Hunk made his way back from the training deck. He grimaced, steps slowing, and hesitantly lifted a hand to knock on the door.

At once, the thumping stopped.

“Keith?” Hunk asked, drawing the word out. “You in there?”

There was a moment of silence, a moment Lance or Pidge would have used to spit out a sarcastic comment about how, no, their room was haunted.

Keith just sighed, the sound very nearly melodramatic by his standards. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Come on in.”

Hunk opened the door and leaned his head into the room. Even after months on the castle-ship, Keith’s room hardly seemed lived in. Where Hunk’s room was an explosion of recipes and schematics and engineering projects abandoned at the first sound of an alarm—where Lance’s was equally full of mementos from their many excursions, Pidge’s with robots and wires and flash drives, Shiro’s with Altean histories and memoirs and strategy books—Keith’s was empty. A tablet on the desk, his jacket on the hook by the wall. That was it.

Hunk thought of the shack in the desert where they’d all spent that first, surreal night after rescuing Shiro. That space had felt like _Keith’s_ , with its dirty clothes strewn about, its drawings and maps on the walls, its books and military rations and shortwave radio.

“You don’t spend much time in here, do you?”

The words were out of Hunk’s mouth before he could consider whether it was a smart thing to say to someone who was, currently, bedridden.

Keith groaned softly, and let his head fall back against the wall. He was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, blade in his lap. “We’re fighting a war, Hunk,” he said. “Every minute I spend in bed is a minute that could be better spent training, or fighting, or—or—I don’t know, figuring out how the hell we’re supposed to form Voltron without Shiro.”

There was a sharp edge to Keith’s words, dulled only a little by the weeks that had passed since they’d opened up the Black Lion’s cockpit to find the black bayard and an empty chair. Keith cursed softly, shoved his knife back into its sheath, and dropped his forehead onto his knees.

Hunk sighed, drumming his fingers on the doorframe for a moment before crossing to sit on the edge of Keith’s bed. “I take it the R&R’s not going so well.”

Keith gave him an incredulous look. “R&R?” he asked sourly. “More like cruel and unusual punishment. Did you know these rooms have bed alarms? I can't go to the bathroom without Coran calling me up on the intercom and asking me if everything’s alright.”

“You’re joking?” Hunk’s eyebrows lifted, and he reminded himself that laughing at Keith’s frustration wouldn’t get him anywhere he wanted to go. “How many times did he catch you sneaking off to the training deck before he resorted to that?”

Keith flushed, glaring hard at the knife in his lap. “Five,” he said, then lifted his chin and fixed Hunk with a glare that stopped Hunk’s laughter in its tracks. “I can’t afford to fall behind.”

“Fall behind? Dude, come _on_.”

“I just...” Keith ran his thumb along the flat of his blade, tracing the Marmorite symbol near the hilt. He didn’t look at Hunk. “I don’t get _why_ I have to be on bed rest.”

Hunk snorted. “You broke your _femur_.”

Keith’s hands slowed, one reaching toward his thigh, running over the wrinkles in his pant leg. Hunk wondered whether he remembered yesterday as well as Hunk did. The way his armor had shattered in the jaws of the Galra beast, the way it had tossed its head, flinging him thirty feet like he weighed nothing at all. The odd angle of his leg, the blood seeping through the fissures in his armor. The way he’d screamed when Hunk and Coran set the bone before sticking him in the cryopod.

“I thought the pods were supposed to be able to fix anything,” Keith grumbled.

There were a lot of ways Hunk could have responded to that, but he knew that ‘it could be worse’ wasn’t actually going to make Keith feel better. So he changed tactics.

“Lance tried to melee it today.”

Slowly, Keith turned his head. “Yeah? How’d that go?”

“Well, he _did_ manage to take out the gladiator,” Hunk said fairly. “But he kinda did it by accident.”

“How do you accidentally take out a killer robot?”

Hunk grinned. “Mistimed his dodge, got tossed like an old hacky-sack, but flailed just right as he fell to take the thing’s head off. He’s going to try to tell you he planned it.” He paused, meeting Keith’s eye. “He did not.”

Keith laughed, a small, surprised sound that made Hunk’s heart flutter. Laughter from Keith was a rare, precious thing, as fleeting as it was breathtaking, like a double rainbow, or a unicorn, or—heck—the Loch Ness Monster. Hunk had been chasing this particular cryptid for the better part of six months, and he’d only managed to make Keith laugh—really laugh, uninhibited, as he had that night on Arus when he was just tipsy enough to let down his guard—twice.

Today seemed like a good day to up that count.

“To be fair, we were all kind of a mess.” Hunk situated himself against the wall beside Keith, not quite close enough to touch, and tucked his hands behind his head. “In case you were wondering, I do not do well against the gladiator without someone there to keep him off me. Lance and Pidge are great and all, but they are _not_ what I’d call a solid defensive line.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t _that_ bad,” Keith said.

Hunk laughed once, rubbing his shoulder. “Uh, yeah, no. Did you know if you shoot the power matrix in just the right spot, you can shut off all the lights on the training deck? Cause, uh, you can. And the gladiator does _not_ care if you can’t see it.”

Keith winced, curling in on himself. “Sorry,” he said. “I should’ve been there.”

 _No, wait,_ Hunk wanted to say. _You're not supposed to feel bad._ _That’s not how this is supposed to go._ He puffed himself up, elbowing Keith in the side. “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure I managed to convince Coran that screaming like a little girl is a traditional Earth war cry.”

“You didn’t.”

“Sure I did. Told him Girl Scouts are fearsome warriors and I got some to train me in self defense when I was a kid. He totally bought it, too. Shrieked like a banshee when he sparred with Pidge after that. She was so busy laughing he disarmed her in record time. I think Lance is planning on teaching him the Tarzan yell next.” Hunk demonstrated for him, ululating to the very best of his ability.

Keith did laugh then, full-bodied laughs that erased the lines frustration had build up around his eyes. Keith was like a different person when he laughed, his face brighter, the hand that had been massaging his injured leg now clutching at Hunk’s sleeve. The laughter burrowed into Hunk’s chest and resonated there, a bonfire that burned away the aches of training. It was hard to think of fatigue in the face of Keith’s infectious smile, a smile that said yesterday’s disastrous battle didn’t matter, said the mantle of leadership Keith was still learning to bear wasn’t quite so heavy now as it sometimes seemed to be.

Keith’s laughter tapered off, and he turned to Hunk with a brilliant smile, the kind that made Hunk forget how to string words together. “Thanks for coming to check on me,” Keith said. “I’m sure you had better ways to spend your night.”

“Better than this?” Hunk asked, returning Keith’s smile. “I don’t think so.”

The way Keith’s eyes brightened, Hunk decided, was a better cure for sore muscles and fresh bruises than an entire week in a cryopod.


	2. Good Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: ~~Gain~~ / **Loss**

Shiro’s absence always hit Keith when he least expected it. Sitting down to dinner, his eyes falling on the empty chair beside him. Mid-battle when the Black Lion rumbled inside his skull, as familiar as she was foreign. A piece of Shiro, and the hole where Shiro should have been.

In the first moment of stillness after Zarkon's defeat, Keith had been nearly delirious with the mingled triumph and dread, life singing in his blood and a chasm yawning in his chest. They hadn’t obliterated the fleet as they’d meant to, and Antok’s death had sat heavy in Allura’s voice as she called them all back to the ship. But they’d _won_. They’d stopped Zarkon. That alone had left Keith buoyant, his aches and his grief held at bay by the sense of accomplishment.

Then he’d registered the silence from the Black Lion. The way she drifted, motionless.

Terror had slunk into him widening the chasm, and even the pride and the satisfaction hadn’t been able to smother the voice that said, _They took him from you again._

It had been Hunk who’d found him that day, curled around Shiro’s bayard in the hallway just outside Shiro’s room. (He’d wanted to go in, but he couldn’t. He _couldn’t_ face the empty room and the fact that he was alone. _Again._ ) Keith had known the others were all staying close that night, afraid to let anyone out of their sight, afraid that they’d wake in the morning to find the rest of the team gone the same way as Shiro.

Hunk had held some of that same fear in his eyes when he’d sat down beside Keith, like he’d thought Keith had up and vanished, too, and Keith hadn’t been able to hold his gaze for long.

“I—I _can’t_ ,” Keith had gasped, hating the way his voice shook, hating the way tears pressed at his eyes, a weight too heavy to stave off. There weren’t enough words in the world to contain how he was feeling—angry at Shiro, for leaving; angry at Zarkon, for taking him; angry at the others, for _being there_ when Shiro _wasn’t_.

Angry at himself for being such a fucking mess.

But Hunk hadn’t tried to tease him back to the rec room, where the others were gathered with their blankets and their tissues and their empty promises that they’d find Shiro and bring him back. Hunk didn’t promise something he couldn’t know. He just reached over and pulled Keith into an embrace, Shiro’s bayard pinned between Hunk’s chest and Keith’s breastplate (he hadn’t changed, couldn’t change, couldn’t let down his guard for nearly a week when something inside him kept screaming that Shiro needed him, needed him _now_.)

“I’m here,” Hunk whispered. “I’ll always be here, Keith, as long as you need me.”

It was only when Hunk spoke the words that Keith recognized the panic clawing at his throat, sharper and more immediate than the ache of Shiro’s disappearance.

He couldn’t lose anyone else.

But Hunk was there. Every time Keith’s careful composure started to unravel, Hunk was there, unwavering. A steady warmth, a firm hold, a voice in his ear promising that the rest of Keith’s universe wasn’t going to follow Shiro into the void.

So it was that today, in the wake of another battle that had gone to hell from the very first, Keith found himself treading a familiar path.

It had been his own fault. His temper, his impulsiveness. He piloted the Black Lion now, but his bond with Red was still the stronger of the two, and her fire sometimes overshadowed Black’s calm. Lance and Allura had tried to talk him down, but he couldn’t hear them with Shiro’s voice in his head reminding him that this was what Shiro had wanted, this was what Keith had to do—take charge, lead them, protect them. Do that, and somehow, some way, maybe that would bring Shiro back. Maybe, if Keith was a good enough leader, if he proved himself, then Shiro would _come back_. Irrational, yes. But it was all he had to cling to, and so he clung, digging in as the pressure mounted until he just

Snapped.

Coran assured him Allura would recover, but that didn’t erase the image of the Blue Lion slamming into the planet's surface, her joints locked as the result of Lotor’s latest toy. It didn’t change the fact that Keith and Lance had had to pull Allura’s limp body from Blue’s cockpit, that Lance had rushed her to a cryopod while Keith towed the mangled Blue Lion back to safety and Coran opened a wormhole to take them away. It didn’t make up for the knowledge that none of it would have happened if he’d listened to Lance and Allura and been patient for once in his goddamn life.

Keith stopped outside Hunk’s door, which opened before he worked up the courage to knock. Hunk was there, a fluffy blanket draped over one arm, two mugs of the best imitation cocoa this side of the Milky Way in his hand.

Keith let himself be led inside and coaxed onto Hunk’s bed. He held his cocoa and breathed in the steam as Hunk settled in behind him, then leaned back against Hunk’s chest and closed his eyes as Hunk recited the mantra that had gotten Keith through every crisis of the last two months.

“I’m here, Keith, I’m right here. Allura’s _here_. She’s okay. We’ll get through this, Keith. No one’s going anywhere.”

A universe full of wild and wonderful things, unthinkable things, and the greatest miracle of all was the way Hunk made Keith believe that everything would be okay.


	3. Touch Aversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~fighting~~ / **touch**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Touch-averse Keith is one of my absolute favorite headcanons, so it was fun to finally take the chance to explore that a little bit.

Keith didn’t like to be touched.

He’d never been able to describe it: the way a stranger brushing up against him in a crowd left a residue on his skin he couldn’t wash away. The way his foster parents’ hugs had smothered him, left him feeling trapped. The way a friendly jab or a slap on the arm or a hand ruffling his hair hit him like an electric shock, hot and sharp and just this side of painful.

He’d never figured out how to explain that to people, as he’d never been able to explain to his own satisfaction why some touches were different. Saying it, saying it was different with certain people, in certain contexts, on certain days, made it all feel like a lie he’d built up to shut people out. But it _was_ different. It didn’t bother him when Shiro put a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. Didn’t chafe. Shiro was safe, and his touch was grounding, and Keith didn’t know why, but that _changed things._

He thought, maybe, things had changed where the other paladins were concerned, too.

The first few days on the castle-ship had been overwhelming. New people, new routines. His life tossed up in the air, and him only barely holding on, only treading water because he had Shiro again.

It took two days for Keith to realize Hunk was a hugger. When he was happy, he lifted you up and squeezed so hard it seemed something had to burst. When he was sad, he burrowed into you, molding himself like a second skin. When he was excited, it was an arm around the waist; when he was worried, he latched onto the nearest arm. He did it without hesitation, without even really seeming to realize what he was doing. As the cheesy survey Keith's caseworker had made him take would have put it, touch was Hunk’s love language.

And it most certainly was _not_ Keith’s.

At first, Keith had held out hope that it was only with Lance that Hunk was so… clingy. That their long friendship made Hunk more comfortable, more—for lack of a better word—intimate. That it would be different with the other five, who barely knew Hunk at all.

He was wrong.

And Keith being Keith, being the friendless, grumpy, quick-tempered loner he was, had thrown up his walls. It was after one of their early battles, and Hunk was trying to pull everyone in for a group hug. Keith danced back, crossed his arms, and glared at the far wall.

“I don’t like being touched.”

Funny, how clearly he remembered Hunk’s look of puzzlement, the touch of sorrow in his eyes, like something in Keith was broken. Like rejecting a hug was rejecting _him_. (Keith couldn’t blame him for that; all of Keith’s foster parents had taken it the same way, had tried again and again to coax him into hugs he didn’t want, and always acted so dejected when he’d wriggled away from arms that hovered just above his skin, afraid to touch but still close enough that he could _feel them there_ , an electric charge in the air.)

Keith was pretty sure Shiro had explained it to the others later, when Keith was holed up in his room, barricaded against the others’ sorrow and pity and hurt. Touch-aversion, his caseworker had called it. Most likely related to his other sensory issues. Nothing personal.

Hunk did his best to respect Keith’s boundaries, though Keith could see the way it gnawed at him to hold back. It was the way he took a half a step toward Keith after battle, arms open for a hug, before he remembered. It was the way his eyes burned into the back of Keith’s head when Keith was in a bad mood. It was the way Hunk sometimes fiddled with his gloves when he hung out with Keith, like he had to give his hands something else to do to keep them from spontaneously pulling Keith into a hug.

It was… nice. That Hunk cared enough to hold back. It was a nice change from foster parents who had treated it like a flaw to be polished away by fake smiles and coerced affection. But Hunk’s consideration also made Keith feel guilty as hell. If Shiro was safety, was grounding, why couldn’t Hunk be, too? Why _shouldn’t_ he be, except that Keith was still too scared to find out?

Keith couldn’t pinpoint the day things changed. Maybe it was when they were all separated by the corrupted wormhole, and Keith, alone and aching, had felt the others’ absence like a hand hovering over his back, close enough to make his skin crawl.

Maybe it was after he found out he was part Galra, when Allura was looking at him with thinly-veiled hatred and Keith had to grit his teeth and remind himself that he was a paladin, not a child, and he couldn’t demand that Shiro always be there as a buffer against the rest of the team.

He wasn’t sure he wanted a hug. Maybe he just wanted to want it. He wanted something to sooth the ragged edges inside him, and it struck him that that was just the sort of thing other people fixed with hugs, and he was desperate enough for comfort he almost didn’t care that it had never worked that way for him before.

He was desperate enough for some tangible sign that he was still wanted that when it came time to part ways, Keith threw his arms around Shiro and clung. His guilt rose high to choke him as Shiro hesitated, for just an instant, surprised that Keith— _Keith—_ was hugging him.

Then Shiro’s arms closed around him, and it was the same as it always was with Shiro—warm, but not stifling; tight, but not constricting. There was no hesitation in Shiro’s hug, not like the foster parents whose hugs always telegraphed their uncertainty, their doubts, and their discomfort. Shiro held him, warm, steady, comfortable. A promise spoken through touch, words imprinted into his bones as Shiro’s arms squeezed tighter.

Deep pressure, Pidge called it, smiling as though that explained everything.

The night before the joint assault with the Blade of Marmora, Keith found Hunk on the bridge, staring out over the forests of Olkarion, his hands curled over his heart like he was trying to keep it from escaping.

“You seem nervous,” Keith said, stepping up beside him.

Hunk glanced down, startled, and attempted a smile. “Yeah. Kinda. Big day tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Keith’s eyes darted sideways, noting the tremble in Hunk’s hands. “We’ll be fine. It’s a solid plan, and we’ll all be there to back each other up.”

“I know.” Hunk bit his lip, meeting Keith’s eyes for a moment before turning away. “That doesn’t mean I’m not still picturing all the ways it could go wrong. I mean, what if the virus doesn’t do what we need it to do? What if Allura can’t hold open a wormhole that size? What if the teludav doesn’t even _work_? What if Zarkon has some trick up his sleeve we haven’t thought of? What if someone _dies_? What if--?”

“Hunk,” Keith said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Breathe.”

Hunk did so, though the air wavered on the exhale.

Keith studied him, heart in his throat, then hesitantly spread his arms. “You want a hug?”

Hunk’s head whipped around so fast the tails of his headband smacked him in the nose. “A—what?” Seeming to realize he was gaping, Hunk snapped his mouth shut. “I thought you hated hugs?”

Keith shrugged, looking at his toes. “Yeah, but you don’t,” he said with a nervous little laugh. “I think, considering the circumstances, I can make an exception… Unless--”

He’d just begun to lower his arms, feeling foolish, when Hunk fell against him, his arms engulfing Keith, squeezing the breath from his lungs. For just an instant, Keith panicked, the familiar sense of suffocation clawing at his chest.

Then Hunk breathed in, and Keith’s body automatically copied the motion. It was easy. Easier than he would have expected, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been so scared. Hunk was strong, but he wasn’t careless. His broad arms seemed to envelop Keith, wrapping him up in warmth and gratitude, like a blanket fresh out of the dryer or the sun on his back after a day of hiking the canyons outside the Garrison. It wasn’t entirely pleasant—but it wasn’t entirely _unpleasant_ , either.

Keith slowly wrapped his arms around Hunk’s back, easing into the embrace. He could do this. If Hunk could hold back, could abandon the language of touch to communicate his love in a way Keith understood, then it seemed only fair Keith learn to speak Hunk’s language. Maybe not all the time, maybe not always for long, but he could make the effort.

“Thanks, Keith,” Hunk whispered. “I needed this.”

Keith smiled and curled his hands into the back of Hunk’s shirt. “I’m glad I could help.”


	4. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: ~~dreams~~ / **reality**

Hunk wanted their first date to be perfect.

Okay, sure, by certain definitions they’d already been on plenty of dates—easy missions where they ended up just wandering around some ruins competing to make the best puns, movie nights in Hunk’s room buried under a mountain of blanket eating astronaut food (Keith’s term for Hunk’s creative food goo transformations), several dozen sunsets spent hand in hand on new and beautiful planets.

But none of those had been official. None of those had been _dates._ They’d been brief moments stolen from the jaws of a war that seemed bent on tearing them both apart. However much Hunk treasured those stolen moments, he held no delusions as to what they really were: desperate attempts to stop Keith from overworking himself in the search for Shiro and the fight against Lotor and the paladins’ constant efforts to step up and fill the gaping hole in their team. Sometimes Keith worked himself to the point of collapse and then came to Hunk for comfort; more often Hunk tracked Keith down on the training deck and imposed a fleeting moment of calm before the storm raged back in.

It only really calmed down after Shiro returned.

Hunk had been more privy to Keith’s inner turmoil than most in the weeks leading up to it, and even he’d been caught off guard by just how quickly Keith shut down once Shiro was safely back within arm’s reach. He’d retreated to his room early that night, for once not bothering with his usual training regimen, and had slept for a solid ten hours—twice what he’d been getting these last few weeks.

It had taken a few days, but things had gone back to normal. Keith had started smiling again, unprompted. He even kissed Hunk once, completely out of the blue. Just walked into the kitchen while Hunk was finishing up dinner and planted a kiss on the tip of his nose.

Hunk had wanted to celebrate the return of Keith’s high spirits, and so he’d suggested a date. Keith hadn’t even bothered with an interrogation before agreeing, and Hunk had sprung on the chance to surprise him.

 _Don’t worry about anything,_ Hunk had said. _I’ll come get you when it’s ready._

He’d spent an entire day preparing. Shiro provided a list of Keith’s favorite foods, Lance helped Hunk pick out clothes from the castle’s stores, and Allura showed him how to adjust the lighting in the dining hall and get music to play at a volume more palatable to human ears than Coran’s preferred ‘death metal shrieking.’

And then, just as he was finishing up the sauce, five minutes before he would have gone to find Keith, the alarms started blaring.

Allura kept shooting him apologetic looks as she explained the situation (distress beacon from a planet that was actively being fired upon), but Hunk knew as well as anyone that innocent lives had to take priority over date night. So they got to their lions and dove into the fight, and Hunk had only a few seconds to wonder if he’d turned the stove off before the crisscrossing lines of enemy lasers fixed his attention to the matter at hand.

Hunk didn’t remember getting hit.

He remembered ramming into the biggest ship, Yellow roaring with the strain of twisting its ion cannon away from the defenseless city below. He remembered the sight of forests burning and buildings crumbling. He remembered the way Keith’s voice hitched as he called out a warning.

The next thing he knew was cold. His hands had started tingling, and his nose itched the way it sometimes did in the middle of winter when he’d rubbed it raw. He caught a hazy glimpse of the room beyond, and a familiar face pinched with… worry? No, impatience.

The cryopod hissed as it opened, and Hunk noted that it sounded different when your ears were still half-frozen. He stumbled coming out, but Keith caught him, one hand splayed across Hunk’s back, the other held out for Hunk to squeeze as sensation made its way back into his extremities.

“How you feeling?” Keith asked slowly.

Hunk paused to consider before saying, “Fine. What happened?”

“There was a second ship hiding under a cloak. You took the brunt of a full powered ion-plasma blast.” The hand on Hunk’s back twitched, fingers pulling at the fabric of his undersuit. “Allura says Yellow absorbed the worst of the damage—he’s fine, by the way, but it knocked his systems out for a while. The two of you slammed into the ground. You were… you were pretty out of it. Kept apologizing for burning the sauce.”

“Okay, but to be fair, that sauce would’ve been amazing,” Hunk said. “You would’ve loved it.”

A smile tugged at Keith’s lips. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m sorry I ruined our date with my traumatic head wound.”

“The sad reality of war,” Keith deadpanned. He shifted, turning Hunk toward the door, and though Hunk could have easily supported his own weight, Keith was being awfully clingy right now, and Hunk wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the moment by pulling away. “Now can we get back to our date?”

Hunk frowned as he let himself be let to the door, trying (and not quite succeeding) to sync his steps to Keith’s to make their awkward shuffle more efficient. “Uh… Keith? I think it’s a little late to salvage the sauce.”

“I know.” Keith turned his head, smiling softly. “But I managed to get the others to promise us a night to ourselves since our last date went, uh… a little bit off the rails.”

“Little bit,” Hunk agreed. He straightened, grinning as Keith began to blush. “So… does this mean you planned a date for us?”

Keith ducked his head. “I mean. It’s nothing as fancy as what you were doing, probably. Figured you wouldn’t be up for skydiving after this. But I’ve got movies and extra blankets, and Lance helped me figure out your chocolate chunk food goo cookie recipe. I don’t think they turned out _completely_ inedible.”

Hunk couldn’t stop himself from cooing, which of course only deepened Keith’s blush. “Awwww, _Keith!_ That’s so sweet of you!”

“Sh-shut up,” Keith said, hunching his shoulders. He pulled away, forcing Hunk to stand up straight—which was fine, since it gave Hunk the chance to come around in front of him and appreciate Keith’s blush in all its splendor. “It’s no big deal.”

“You cooked for me!”

“You’re going to regret being this excited about this when you have to choke down my miserable excuse for cookies and pretend they’re not disgusting.”

“Keith, come on. You know me. I never lie about food quality. If they’re bad, I’m going to tell you--”

“Gee, thanks.”

“--which is why it’s a good thing I’m absolutely positive they’re going to taste amazing.”

Keith snorted, sounding pleased, and brushed past Hunk. “You keep telling yourself that. Just promise that when I prove you wrong you’ll teach me how to make them the right way.”

Hunk smiled at the back of Keith’s head and followed him back toward their rooms. “It’s a date.”


	5. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: **family** / ~~friends~~

“I barely knew my parents,” Keith admitted, staring past his feet at the dizzying drop. Even knowing it was only a projection created by the castle, and that a smooth, blank gray floor waited just a few inches past the soles of his shoes, he still felt a faint touch of vertigo—not enough to make him uncomfortable, but _enough._ It was the little pulse of adrenaline that had drawn him to flying, the whispering voice that said _mankind isn’t meant to be all the way up here._

Beside him, Hunk was pointedly _not_ looking down at the simulated chasm. They’d discovered this room a few months ago, and they occasionally came here when the war had kept them in deep space for too long and Keith started to itch for more open vistas. Hunk usually let Keith choose the scenery, though the dazzling heights and raging storms and festering lava fields Keith preferred often left Hunk a little pale.

 _This is your thing,_ Hunk had once said. _I want to share it with you, but not if it means you feel like you have to hold back on my account._

So Keith chose the places his soul ached for, and Hunk found ways to remind himself their lives were not _actually_ in danger. He sat now with his feet planted firmly on the edge of the viewing platform, though that put him about a foot behind Keith, and watched the curious lavender clouds, wispy and ever-changing, whip by overhead. “But you saw your dad in the Blade’s illusion thingamajig, right?”

Keith sighed, leaning a little more forward, so that it felt like an errant breeze might send him toppling a mile or more to the silvery thread of the river far below. “Yeah. I remember him a little. He used to take me camping.”

The castle-ship’s computers identified this particular vista as coming from the planet Gleithavak, at the site of an ancient city-state. Keith wondered what sort of people would build their cities this high, and this near the sheer cliff. He wondered why _he_ was so drawn to places like this. Because of the danger? Because of the beauty? Or because seeing nature balance itself on the edge of destruction somehow justified the uneasy balance he’d struck in his own life between everything he’d lost and everything he fought so desperately to hold onto?

“He take you places like this?” Hunk asked, a smile in his voice. “Little baby Keith, sleeping in a tent a foot and a half from certain death?”

Keith laughed, wondering what Hunk would say if he knew about the time Keith and his father had almost gotten caught in a flash flood. Or the time Keith had tried to pet a bear cub. He held an irrationally clear image in his mind of his dad and the mama bear both racing toward their cubs, screaming fear and fury that seemed to blend into one voice.

Pure fantasy, he was sure, but everything he remembered of his dad told him that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

“He died…jeez, how long ago now? I was seven,” Keith said, “so—shit. Eleven years ago.” It struck him, as it sometimes did, just how long he’d been alone. More than half his life. More than a decade, now. And yet it seemed like he shouldn’t have lasted so long without his dad there to pull him back from the edge when he lost himself in the thirst for _more_ and wound up on the cusp of a fall too far to fathom. “But I don’t really _know_ him. Not like I ever stopped to ask him about himself. What he did before he had me, how he met my mom, whether he ever felt like there was something in his chest trying to claw its way out.”

Hunk scooted forward, carefully, and rested his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Do _you_ feel that way?”

Taking a deep breath, Keith lifted his gaze toward the horizon. The viewing platform sat on one of the highest peaks in a vast mountain range, the line of peaks extending to the very limit of Keith’s vision. “Sometimes. When I think about my mom.”

“And… she’s the one who’s Galra? Or, well, part Galra, maybe.”

Keith nodded. “I don’t remember what she looked like, but sometimes it feels like I remember her. I remember being with her.” The torrent of words crashed against his teeth, forward momentum suddenly halted by a spike of guilt.

_We’re all the family you need._

Shiro’s voice, though it hadn’t been Shiro speaking the words. It had been Keith—Keith’s mind, Keith’s fear, Keith’s guilt.

“Keith?”

“Sorry,” Keith said, ducking his head. “I just—it’s no big deal.”

“You still want to find her though… right? I mean, assuming she’s still out there?”

Keith hesitated.

Hunk’s hand tightened slightly, and Keith finally turned, sighing.

“Yeah,” he said. “I want to find her. I mean--” He gestured with one hand, a short, jerky motion that only served to rile him up more. “It’s stupid, I know. Why should I care about someone who ran off when I was just a little kid, right? I don’t owe her anything. But… I need to know where I came from. I need to know why she left. It’s nothing against you guys, I just--”

“Keith, hey.” Hunk paused, flicking his hand in a way that deactivated the hologram vista. Suddenly Keith sat on a simple silvery platform in a dull, dim globe, but the sense of vertigo, the fear that one wrong move would send him crashing to his doom, hadn’t left. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. She’s _family_. If my family was out here somewhere, you _know_ I’d never stop tearing the universe apart until I found them.”

Keith sighed, folding his arms atop his knees. “But I’ve got you guys. I don’t _need_ her.”

“You think you have to choose?”

Keith opened his mouth to say of course not, he knew better than that, he knew Shiro’s ultimatum had only been in his head.

But he paused, the words sticking in his throat.

Hunk sighed, scooting closer to him. “Family doesn’t make you pick sides, Keith. Family— _real_ family—is there for you no matter what. I mean, sure, if you find your mom and she’s a jerk to you, I might end up hating her, but it’s up to you if you want her in your life. And either way, you’ll still have me. Assuming you want me.”

“Of course I do,” Keith murmured.

Hunk smiled. “Then that’s that. Whenever you want to go off mom-hunting, you just say the word and I’m there.”

Keith lifted his head, smiling as he met Hunk’s eyes. The world no longer seemed to be swaying on a precipice. The question of his mother still lurked below him like a chasm, but with Hunk there to steady him, it didn’t feel as precarious as it had before.

Family, he was realizing, was a wonderful thing to have.


	6. Hold On (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: **colors**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow is a free day, and this got long, so I'm turning it into a two-parter. AKA, here's the hurt, I swear there's comfort coming.
> 
> Warning for major character injury.

“Hunk,” Shiro said, “how’s it coming?”

Hunk ducked behind the stack of metal canisters he was using as cover. Laserfire flashed by overhead, striking the canisters with a sharp ringing sound that made Hunk’s ears ache. He slid to the ground, resting his bayard across his lap as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Uh...” His head was pounding, his body bruised from the dozens of shots the sentries had already landed. “Yeah, no, I’m trying to put a positive spin on this, but that’s not happening. I’m getting swarmed down here.” He didn’t know how many sentries he’d already taken out—twenty? Fifty? They just kept coming, an endless, seething mass of metal and lasers standing between him and the shiny new Galra weapon he was supposed to take out. “I thought this was supposed to be an _easy_ mission.”

“Yeah, well.” Pidge huffed out a short breath, muttering under their breath about the _stupid cameras_ and _what the hell kind of security are they running here?_ “What we failed to take into consideration was that Lotor is twice as petty as Zarkon. He knows how we operate by now, and he’s determined to be as annoying as possible.”

The steady pulse of Lance’s shots paused for a moment, and Hunk imagined he’d taken cover for now, too. His breath came almost as ragged as Hunk’s. “Annoying? Playing bad music during training is annoying— _Coran._ This is freaking _murder_. Where are all these things coming from?”

“Wish I could tell you, Lance,” Pidge said. “But the security here is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Every time I think I’m in, it dumps me into another security protocol. It’s like trying to find my way through the Lost Woods, except the last room has no exit so I just keep looping back to the start.”

The laserfire had begun to taper off, and Hunk tensed. He hadn’t quite caught his breath, but any change in the sentries’ attack pattern warned of disaster. Steeling himself, he hefted his bayard and stumbled back to his feet, unleashing on the enemy. Return fire pinged against his armor, adding new bruises to his collection. Nothing had yet broken through, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

“Is that possible?” Hunk asked.

“What, that I’m stuck in an infinite loop?” Pidge asked.

“No.” Keith’s voice was tense, a coiled snake waiting to strike. The control room where Pidge had gone was supposed to be the most heavily guarded of their targets, so Keith and Shiro had gone with them while Hunk and Lance took out the twin energy cores that powered Lotor’s latest weapon. That Hunk and Lance had run into mountains of trouble while the other three were basically ignored had set Keith on edge—and it showed. He sounded like he wanted to leap through the comms and help Hunk, which was touching, if a little impractical. “He means, what if it’s a dead end? What if you can’t crack it because there’s nothing to find?”

There was a moment of silence, and Hunk dropped back below his cover and blinked sweat from his eyes.

Then Pidge began to swear.

Shiro made the call a moment later. “We’re pulling out. Keith, Pidge, get to Hunk. If you can punch through and sabotage the energy core, great. If not, we’ll figure something else out. Lance, I’m on my way to your position.”

“Sounds super,” Lance said, a little warble in his voice. “How long?”

“Ninety seconds.”

The sentries surrounding Hunk were changing tactics again, lasers thinning out, and Hunk grimaced as he readied himself for another round. He hoped his armor held out until Keith and Pidge got there.

He almost missed the squad that had split off from the rest and circled around to his left. He saw them at the exact moment they cleared the edge of his barricade, and he barely had time to trade his bayard for his shield to block the sudden salvo of attacks.

“Hunk?” Keith asked. “Hunk!”

“I’m fine,” Hunk said, straining against the force of a dozen-odd laser guns firing at once. He was down on one knee, shoulders hunched so his head didn’t rise above the metal canisters and give the rest of the army a target, but his shield provided less cover against the second group. First one shot, then another slipped past, slamming into his shoulder, his knee. He wobbled, hissing. “Any chance you’re about to come bursting through the door?”

“Almost there, Hunk,” Pidge said. “Just a few more seconds.”

“Right,” Hunk said, squinting against the vicious flash of lasers. “Sounds good. I can hold out a few more seconds. I think.” Funny how he could pick Keith’s breathing out of the mess of sounds assaulting his ears. Keith didn’t say anything, didn’t even swear; he’d be too focused on speed to sacrifice the air. But Hunk could hear him, a steady rhythm that Hunk tried to mimic. “Just a few more seconds.”

A sudden jolt in his back.

Hunk opened his eyes, wondering if another group of sentries had gotten smart and circled around behind him. God, he hoped not. He only had one shield.

As he started to turn to see how screwed he was, he felt an odd tightness—not pain, not quite. More like a pulled muscle or a crick in his neck. Moving, he thought hazily, was a bad idea, though he didn’t quite know _why._ Then he looked down.

Oh.

_Oh._ That was a sword.

That was definitely a sword, long and silvery, but dripping crimson.

And it was sticking out of him.

“That’s not good,” he murmured.

“What’s not good?” Keith asked. “Hunk?”

The sword disappeared, and that _did_ hurt. Hunk hissed, his whole body going tight as though suddenly realizing there was a hole through him that shouldn’t be there. The wound was leaking blood, the black fabric around it soaked before his mind started working enough to remember that there was someone behind him with a sword.

He turned, head spinning, and got his shield up just as the Galra brought his sword down again, breaking Hunk’s shaky defenses. He toppled, pain shooting through him, and he clutched his side.

“ _Hunk!_ ” Keith cried.

There was a lot of blood. Too much blood. Soaking his black undersuit, pooling between his fingers, staining his gauntlet. A big streak of it cut across his thigh, and Hunk wasn’t sure if it was the sight of blood or the sheer quantity he’d lost that made him woozy, but all he could think was that red shouldn’t scare him so much. Red was Keith’s color, the color of warmth and passion and laughter and--

Blood.

The color of blood as it spilled from Hunk’s body.

A terrible howl broke through the static filling Hunk’s ears, and someone charged past him.

_Keith,_ he thought, struggling to stay awake. _He made it._

He was drifting, barely able to keep his eyes open. When he managed it, all he could see were flashes of green and of blue-white and a haze of red over everything. The sounds of battle washed over him, too fast and too frantic to make any sense of.

“Shit,” Pidge murmured at one point, their voice in his ear too close for Hunk to ignore.

“What’s happening?” Lance. He sounded scared. Hunk thought he should apologize, though he couldn’t quite figure out why. “Where’s Hunk?”

“Down,” Pidge said. “He’s alive, but he’s in bad shape. Really bad shape. Keith’s dealing with the guy who did it. He seems… um, pissed?”

“Yeah, no _shit_ , Pidge. It’s _Hunk_. I’m pissed, too, and I can’t even see the guy who did it.”

“No, I mean—”

Whatever Pidge meant was lost to the roar of battle and the fog in Hunk’s head. Flashes of color, of sound, rolled past him, and then—silence.

Hands pressed against his wound, aggravating it, and Hunk flinched at the fresh stab of pain. The hands faltered, then pressed harder, a stream of garbled apologies tumbling over one another.

_Keith._

Hunk opened his eyes, and for a moment he couldn’t process what he was seeing. Pale skin mottled with purple. That was new. So were the sharp fangs visible every now and then as Keith’s lips formed words Hunk couldn’t hear. And his eyes.

It wasn’t the all-over golden glow of ordinary Galra eyes, but Keith’s irises, once a dark blue-violet, were now vivid yellow. The color of the Yellow Lion. Hunk’s color.

The thought brought a smile to Hunk’s lips despite the agony in his side and the terror on Keith’s face.

The world swayed, and it took Hunk a long while to realize he was being lifted. Keith was lifting him. Carrying him. The light changed, and Hunk wasn’t sure if it was his vision going dim or if they’d made it to one of the lions. He could feel Yellow there, distantly, crooning with worry.

_You’ll be okay,_ he was saying, and someone nearby echoed the words. _Just hold on, Hunk. Hold on._

The last thing Hunk saw before the darkness overtook him was a plea in those wide yellow eyes.

_Don’t go._


	7. Hold On (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7: Free Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised comfort to go with yesterday's hurt.

Keith sat vigil outside Hunk’s cryopod through the night. The others all tried to pull him away, each with their own approach. Shiro squeezed his shoulder and offered to keep watch while Keith was away, Pidge shuffled their feet and pointed out that they could all see the timer counting down to the end of the healing cycle, Coran tried to physically wrestle him toward the door, and Allura got all stern-faced as she tried to reason with him, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the strain around her eyes and the way she clutched at the collar of her armor.

It was Lance, strangely enough, who convinced Keith to go shower and eat. “You think Hunk would want you starving yourself? You think he wants to wake up to find you moping in a puddle of his blood?”

Lance’s voice cracked on the last word, and he turned, huffing a few breaths as he struggled to regain his composure, and whatever argument Keith might have made evaporated. He glanced once more at Hunk’s still form in the pod—there was entirely too much red, and his skin looked ashen and waxy, and Keith had to turn away before the room started to spin so much he passed out. He caught Shiro’s eye, opened his mouth to ask—to beg—to—

“Go on,” Shiro said, sitting down with his back to Hunk’s pod. “I’ll take my turn until you get back.”

So Keith left, shedding his bloody armor in the med bay so the castle could clean and sanitize it, then staggering back to his room. He collapsed in his shower, sitting beneath the scalding spray. The heat reminded him too much of the feel of Hunk’s blood flowing between his fingers. Hands shaking, he reached up and twisted the knob all the way to the right.

The water turned frigid, shocking the air right out of Keith’s lungs, but he forced himself to stay, scrubbing at his face, at the handful of patches of violet still darkening his arms. As long as he didn’t look right at them, he could almost imagine they were bruises.

Allura had assured him the transformation was temporary, and that it likely would never get worse than this—simply the result of his Quintessence raging out of control. He didn’t understand how, and he doubted any explanation would have sunk in, as messed up as he was right now. So he was glad when the others hadn’t made an issue of it.

Lance came knocking some indeterminate amount of time later, his tentative voice lost to the rush of water. Keith sighed, but forced himself to stand.

“I’m coming, Lance,” he said as he shut off the water. “Give me a minute.”

Keith glanced in the mirror only reluctantly, and breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw he was back to normal. He felt drained, physically and emotionally, and he wasn’t sure how many more minor thorns he could take before the floodgates broke.

When Keith finally pulled on his shirt and ventured out of the bathroom, he found Lance sitting on his bed, a bowl of food goo held loosely in his hands. A second bowl sat on the nightstand. Keith’s stomach turned at the sight, but he grabbed the bowl anyway and sat beside Lance, stirring the goo with his spoon.

“Not hungry?” Lance asked with a weak smile.

Keith shook his head. “I can’t get the image out of my head. It—he… That was a _lot_ of blood.”

It wasn’t just the blood, of course. They’d all seen their fair share of wounds, and more than a few that had gushed. Not even Hunk got this messed up over a little blood anymore. But seeing Hunk like that—limp, eyes unfocused. It was wrong. Viscerally, horrifically wrong. Hunk was life and sunshine and warm smiles. Hunk was a tight hug and encouraging words shouted across a room and a laugh that loosened the stress that always seemed on the verge of strangling.

He wasn’t supposed to look so _hollow._

“Thanks,” Lance said. He had a spoonful of goo lifted halfway to his lips. Rather than eat it, though, he just grimaced and lowered it back to the bowl. He looked up, meeting Keith’s eyes. “For getting him out of there.”

“I… Of course,” Keith said. His mind was running too slow to come up with a more eloquent response, and he shoved his spoon into his mouth, forcing himself to swallow as his stomach turned over. “What, you think I would’ve let him die?”

Lance smiled, and Keith’s half-roused anger fizzled out. “I know you wouldn’t.” He took a deep breath, then started eating. He, like Keith, seemed determined to finish as quickly as possible so they could get back to Hunk. But when Keith shoved his empty bowl into the tube that led back down to the kitchens and headed for the door, Lance caught him by the wrist.

Keith turned.

“You want some company tonight?” he asked. “Cause I don’t think I’d be able to sleep, anyway.”

Keith blinked, taking in the redness of Lance’s eyes, the way his damp hair formed furrows. Cautiously, Kieth offered a smile. “Sure,” he said. “I’d like that.”

* * *

To his surprise, Keith actually ended up dozing sometime around dawn. The others had stayed for a while, but Allura and Coran had a castle to care for, and Shiro had left when Pidge finally passed out around midnight—early by their standards, but they were all exhausted after the day’s trials. Lance had stayed, though. He’d stayed, and he hadn’t even really tried to talk. Just sat beside Keith at the foot of Hunk’s cryopod and occasionally hummed quietly.

Keith woke to incessant beeping. He jerked, dislodging Lance’s head from his shoulder, and blinked at the iridescent glow of the castle’s lighting.

“Good morning, Three and Four,” Coran chirped, glancing up from the central console.

Lance sat upright, his hair sticking up at odd angles, and yawned. “Wha…?” Suddenly his eyes widened. “Hunk!” He shot to his feet, nearly overbalancing and smashing his face on the floor. Keith stood somewhat more gracefully and helped Lance find his balance, and both turned toward Hunk.

He was looking worlds better than he had last night, his color back to its usual warm bronze, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

Keith shot a glance at Coran. “Is he…?”

“Scans look super,” Coran said, beaming. “Should be just about time for him to pop out.”

Shiro, Pidge, and Allura burst in just before the pod gave one final beep. Then the glass flickered and vanished, and Keith surged forward just in time to grab Hunk as he toppled.

“You’re okay,” Keith said, ashamed to hear his voice wavering. “Take it slow.”

Hunk blinked, groaned, then squinted at Keith. “What… Keith?”

Keith smiled, his vision blurring. “Hey.”

“What happened? Was I in the cryopod? Why…?” He paused, eyes focusing. He paled, grasping at his side with the hand that wasn’t squeezing Keith’s shoulder in a death grip.

“You gave us all a scare,” Shiro said gently. “How are you feeling?”

Seeming to realize that he wasn’t bleeding out anymore, Hunk stared around the room. “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine, really.”

Keith snorted, glaring at the floor as his emotions warred in his chest, a tempest threatening to spill out if he let his control slip for an instant. “I thought you were _dead_ ,” he said. It sounded like an accusation; he knew this. But he didn’t know how to make it sound like anything else.

Hunk was quiet, and Keith could feel those warm, dark eyes on the top of his head. He didn’t want to meet them, didn’t want to remember the way they’d stared right through him last night as Hunk started to fade. Tremors wracked his body and, struggling just to breathe, Keith buried his face in Hunk’s chest. He didn’t say a word, but Hunk understood what he needed and wrapped his arms around Keith in a warm, secure hold.

“I’m still here.” The words, spoken into Keith’s hair, made his scalp tingle, and he squeezed Hunk around the middle, reminding himself that the worst _hadn’t_ happened. Hunk was okay. Keith wasn’t losing him.

He didn’t look up from Hunk’s chest as the others crowded in to welcome him back to the land of the living, though it meant Lance and Pidge both jostled him. Shiro, at least, was careful to give him space, and the Alteans kept their distance.

Before the relief had fully settled in, Keith found himself stumbling back to Hunk’s room. He still had his arm under Hunk’s shoulder, though he couldn’t have said which of them was supporting the other. The castle seemed to be flying on a tilt, and Keith couldn’t make his hands stop shaking.

They fell into bed together, Keith landing atop Hunk and grunting disapproval as Hunk shifted, leaving a cold emptiness as Keith slid onto the mattress. But Hunk returned a moment later, tugging the blankets up over them, and Keith didn’t care for one second that it was eight o’clock in the morning and training was due to start in an hour. Hunk was here. Hunk was safe.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Keith said. The words came out garbled, muffled by Hunk’s shirt and the steady, grounding pulse of his heartbeat.

Hunk’s chest rose and fell, and he pulled back, ducking his head until Keith had no choice but to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry I worried you,” Hunk said. “If it helps, I always knew you’d get there in time.”

Keith huffed out. His emotions were too much of a mess to decide if he was flattered or exasperated or just so, so tired. He crossed his arms on Hunk’s chest, plastered his best scowl on his face.

“If you ever scare me like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Hunk grinned. “Love you too, Keith.”

His hand slid along the back of Keith’s neck, and he pulled him down into a kiss.


End file.
